Promising Practices in Program
Management and Data Use
DISTANCE LEARNING
June 4, 2015
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Webinar Agenda
Welcome
Introduction to Webinar Series
State Presentations
Questions
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What is the “Promising Practices in Program
Management and Data Use” webinar series?
 Part of the NRS project’s ongoing effort to help states
and programs improve their use of data for program
improvement
 Each webinar will center on a specific strategy using
data for program improvement.
 Hear from states that have successfully implemented
the strategy


Find out what they have done
What the data says
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NRS DISTANCE
LEARNING POLICY
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NRS Distance Education Policy
 Defines distance education and learners
 Describes how to measure contact hours
 Describes assessment procedures
 Describes how to report on distance
education students
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Distance Education Defined
 Formal learning activity where students and
instructors are separated by geography, time or
both for the majority of the instructional period.
 Delivered through print, audio recording,
videotape, broadcasts, computer software, webbased programs and other online technology.
 Supported through communication via mail,
telephone, e-mail or online technologies and
software.
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Distance Education Students Defined
 Students receiving distance education
instruction
 Students who receive both distance education
and traditional classroom instruction


State must have a policy that defines how local
programs are to classify the student
For NRS reporting, states can count a student only
once, as either a distance education student or
traditional classroom learner
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Contact Hours -12 Hour Rule
 Must have 12 or more hours of contact to be
counted
 Contact can be a combination of actual
contact and contact through telephone, video,
teleconference or online communication
where student and program staff can interact
 Learner identity must be verifiable
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Proxy Contact Hours
 States can optionally measure and report estimates
of student contact hours (proxy hours) with these
methods



Clock Time –elapsed time that a learner is engaged
online or with software that tracks time
Teacher Verification–hours for assignments based on
teacher determination of time needed to complete
assignment
Learner Mastery--hours based on the learner passing a
test on the content of each assignment
 Proxy methods must match curricula and be
described in state policy
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Assessing Distance Learners
 Must be pre- and posttested tested like other
learners
 Posttest time must be after the same number
of instructional hours


Measured by proxy hours
State policy must describe when if proxy hours
not measured
 All assessments must be face-face at a site
proctored by program or state staff
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Reporting Distance Education Students
 Use Tables 4C and Table 5A for Reporting


Report only distance education students in
these tables
Include all contacts hours, including proxy
hours in Table 4
 Also Report in Table 4 and All Other Tables

Include all contacts hours, including proxy
hours
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Distance Learning in Minnesota
Tom Cytron-Hysom
Renada Rutmanis
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Distance Learning in Ohio
Donna Albanese
Tim Ponder
Marty Ropog
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QUESTIONS?
COMMENTS?
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Thank You!
Please join us for the next webinar.
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